High-Sensitivity Wearable Sensors Based on Porous Graphene Belts for Human Motions Detection

Abstract

Sensing and responding to human motion stimuli are important features of wearable electronic devices. The design and construction of deformable inner structures increase wearable sensors’ sensitivity and accuracy. In this study, reduced graphene oxide porous belts (rGO-PBs) were successfully designed and prepared using the intercalation/reduction method. The linear belts had excellent flexibility and conductivity. Then, the flexible rGO-PBs were encapsulated with PDMS to construct wearable sensors. The rGO-PB sensors demonstrated excellent accuracy, a fast response time (about 75 ms), a large sensing range (0-180°), and outstanding durability (4,000 cycles). With these excellent properties, the belt-based wearable sensors could monitor human motions, such as large joint movements and subtle muscle vibrations, detect voices, and identify sample words. This outstanding performance indicated that the prepared rGO-PBs have numerous possibilities for application in wearable electronic devices.

Keywords

• Deformation sensing
• porous structure
• wearable sensor
• linear belt